


never let me go

by elizabethisnotcool



Series: listen to the music [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: I suck at writing endings, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, i am fueled by spite and sprite, inspired by the Florence+ The Machine song Never Let Me Go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:34:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29346690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizabethisnotcool/pseuds/elizabethisnotcool
Summary: Inspired by Never Let Me Go by Florence + The MachineToph still has nightmares about the airships.ALTERNATIVELY:There are a lot of things Toph can hide from her friends. This is not one of them.
Relationships: Aang & Toph Beifong & Katara & Sokka & Suki & Zuko, Toph Beifong & Sokka, Toph Beifong & The Gaang
Series: listen to the music [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2092260
Kudos: 19





	never let me go

TOPH BEIFONG OFTEN FELL ASLEEP DRAPED ACROSS HER FRIEND’S LAPS. She didn’t mean to (or maybe she did), but it seemed a bad habit she could no longer hope to keep. When she woke up, she could feel their twisted expressions like she could feel their stares. They never said anything, because she didn’t, but they watched her solemnly as she rubbed her wrists like there was still a grip there. 

When she found herself asleep on Sokka, she always woke tighter to his chest than before. His heartbeat told Toph he knew, but her own didn’t care. Neither of them spoke each time, just held onto each other while Sokka stared at his leg that never quite healed properly, and Toph’s hand found her wrist. 

Some mornings, when she didn’t have Sokka to hold her to his chest or Zuko to hold her hands, or Katara to dote on her like she wished her mother would, or Aang to tell her she was okay, she could still hear the shriek of the metal airships crashing against each other and falling to the roaring waves in terrible unity. Some mornings, she could hear the waves roaring beneath her and the wind in her ears. She could feel the fire from all directions, burning her skin. She could hear Sokka’s warning, telling her to hold on. She was so sure she was going to die she screamed, and yet woke up in her room in the Fire Nation Palace exactly where she fell asleep.

None of these mornings did anyone come to check on her. She felt no impeding footsteps, and she could hear no heavy heartbeats except her own. The Palace was large, and remained largely empty and largely separate. Toph listened to her pounding heart until the sun peaked through her windows and warned her of the day with its warmth. 

This was how many mornings were spent in the palace, and Toph wanted it to stay that way. She should have known it would never last. The sun always rises in the morning. She can always feel its warmth, even when she wants the night to last just a bit longer. 

__

Toph could feel the sun blazing through the open windows of the dining room as she sat down. Vaguely, she felt stares turn her way and linger a bit longer than they should’ve, but Toph sat down regardless. Always the peacekeeper, Aang soon burst the table into lively conversation. The withering glances didn’t stop, but Toph felt more at peace with them. 

It happened quickly, when Sokka was playing warrior with his dull butter knives. He was slashing them together for some reason (she wasn’t sure, she stopped listening) and the metal screeched a familiar sound. All at once there was heat on her face and she was weightless, and her wrist shrieked with pain, and Sokka was yelling something at her (“Hold on!”) and she could hear screams and Sokka’s leg breaking, cracking with a blunt noise that sounded like hopelessness. She wanted to scream, but she held her tongue for Sokka. His hand started slipping suddenly, and she was about to drop. 

“TOPH! Toph! It’s okay Toph. It’s alright.”

Toph was on the floor of the dining room, scrunched together like Sokka’s fists. Katara was above her, with her hand on Toph’s chest like she could slow her heartbeat herself. Aang was beside Katara, presumably holding her other hand with white knuckles. She could feel Zuko shifting on his feet with relief. 

Despite herself, Toph grabbed her wrist and tried not to feel Sokka’s hand on it anymore. 

“Toph, please. Tell us what happened.” Aang said.

She could feel Sokka’s stare like ice on her skin. He knew. Toph sat up suddenly, attempting to dispel the dizziness from her head. It didn’t work. She fell once again, this time into Katara’s waiting arms beneath her head. Sighing in defeat, Toph laid still on the ground and began to sob. Obviously, the others were not expecting this. Toph could feel some of them shifting their weight back and forth on their feet. Nonetheless, Katara cradled her head while she cried, and no one moved. 

Eventually, when the last of her sniffles dissipated themselves, Toph began to speak. 

“When Sokka was scraping his forks, it reminded me of the airships crashing. Its nothing really.”

Sokka winced. 

“It's not nothing Toph.” Sokka said finally. 

He held his hand out to her. Toph exhaled before taking it in her own and using it to hoist herself up. For a moment he kept her hand in his own, squeezing it gently in support. Now done with the panicked hysteria Toph passing out had brought, the group quietly moved into a sort of circle. 

“I get them too.” Sokka said. “The dreams, the flashbacks. All of it.” 

Toph could feel his pulse quickening. 

“But you seem fine. Most of the time.” Toph mumbled. 

“Because I don’t handle it alone. I have Katara and Suki and everyone. You don’t have to keep it to yourself Toph.”

“We all have our memories from the war.” Zuko said, glancing around the room absentmindedly. “If you bottle them all up, you’ll implode.” 

“You can tell us anything Toph. We’re all here for you.”

There was a significant pause in the room, filled simply with steady inhales and exhales. The silence however, took Toph’s hand and tugged on it until she glanced up, scrutinizing the ghost of her indecisiveness. No matter how much she glowered at it though, it would not move until she opened her mouth and forced it away with her words. She could not see it, but it stared at her until she spoke.

“When we were on the airships, we were cornered by Fire Nation soldiers. Sokka had jumped from one to the other, so his leg was broken,” she gestured to his bandaged leg. “And to try to save us he had thrown his boomerang and used his sword. I was hanging off of the airship, and Sokka’s hand was the only thing keeping me from falling. His hand started to slip, and I thought I was going to die. I could feel the heat from the burning airships and I remember thinking if I didn’t fall to my death, I’d burn to it. I dream about falling. Sometimes it feels like I can remember his hand slipping from mine more than I can remember it pulling me up.”

“I didn’t let you go Toph. We’re okay. We’re still here.” He squeezed her hand, and it was so unlike the sensation of his slipping from hers, that she smiled and squeezed it back.


End file.
